Apr 10, 2015 Sequoia

April 10   On to Yosemite

After checking the road conditions in Yosemite, we take highway 41 and reach the park in about an hour and a half.  Some of the roads are still closed by snow, but most are open. Still nice morning light.

We are entering through Wawona at the south, so traffic isn't bad.  We stop for a short hike to Chilnualna Falls, an area we discovered 10 years ago.  There is a sign saying it is a mountain lion area! Still beautiful and lots of water.

 Yosemite has not had a lot of snow for the second year in a row and one ranger tells us he expects many of the Falls will be dry by May or June.

It is a little over an hour north through gorgeous mountain scenery before we go through a tunnel and emerge in Yosemite Valley.  What an awesome sight this must have been to early explorers!
From here you can see El Capitan, Horsetail Falls, Half Dome, Sentinel Rock and Bridal Veil falls.

As we enter the valley we see several mule deer grazing.  Here we also see more signs of fire, which we have seen often over the past few days.  For a while the forest service tried to put out all fires, before they realized their importance in forest management.  Now they work to control fires and actually sometimes set controlled burns.  But the drought is making fires more frequent.

There are some lovely dogwood trees which a couple from Washington State tell us are almost a month early. Both the trees and the flowers are much larger than Texas and PA trees.

We stop and hike the trail to Bridal Veil Falls, originally called Pohono, "puffing wind" by the Ahwahneechee Indians.

 We stop by a campground reservation site and are told if we come back at 3:00 they will probably have some sites available. So we drive to a pleasant spot and have lunch along the river.  Another view of Bridal Falls from our picnic table.

 I walk a bit while Greg does his PT.   We continue on to Cook's Meadow where we walk some more - it's a gorgeous day - and have a lovely view of half dome.  As well as upper Yosemite Falls - we will walk to the lower falls tomorrow.

 We have seen quite a few folks in climbing gear.  Back to get a campsite in Upper Pines, site #19.  The campgrounds are very busy - close to full!  Some apple trees planted by early settlers are blossoming but the ranger says they are gradually removing them because they attract too many bears.

Greg goes and gets some wood and starts a nice campfire.  Feels good as the temperature drops.  We have some cheese and crackers, then Greg cooks burgers on the grill and we enjoy watching a  young family a few sites away as they play bocci ball and other games.  All the sites have bear boxes to store food, as the ranger says the bears are out of hibernation and looking for easy food.

We are surrounded by tall trees and half dome rock so only a small swatch of sky is available to showcase the stars, but they are brilliant.